February 27, 2010http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scnclr/~3/UTtzwMeN3WY/121-portraits-for-mango-aioli

It is a big pleasure for me, to present works I made for the Cologne techno dj and producer Mango Aioli. This time I choosed a clean 16×16 pixel-format and orientated myself on the brand-colors of Mango! Here are the results:

It is a big pleasure for me, to present works I made for the Cologne techno dj and producer Mango Aioli. This time I choosed a clean 16×16 pixel-format and orientated myself on the brand-colors of Mango! Here are the results:

February 26, 2010http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/2290-dinosaurs-didnt-have-keyboards

…but you have. Dinosaurs Didn’t Have Keyboards is a small platformer, with an experimental game mechanic. You move your dino with the keys 1-2-3-4 to move right, and 0-9-8-7 to move left. To jump you have to press 4 + 7 at the same time. This experiment consist of one level, that isn’t too hard. You have to make the time-record in running from start to goal. People can get very quick on the keys, and after a while the fingers really work physically on the keyboard. Best play it with friends!

The game was made by Sophie Houlden, who also did the Boxgame, that was unconventional and experimental in its nature, too. Cool stuff, she makes. Unfortunately made in Unity, that requires the Unity web-plug in. Wouldn’t it be at the time to completely move to Flash for compatibility-reasons for the next iterations of experimentation? (via Superlevel)

Increpare Games has an interesting slogan: “Let’s try something out here…“. If you expect experimetal works now, than you are absolutely right! The stuff I tried so far on the site are explorations of narrative forms, somehow in between storytelling, classical writing and game interaction. If you got 10 minutes of time, checkout for example Queue.

February 23, 2010http://www.floriankuhlmann.com/2010/my-favourit-hobby/

February 20, 2010http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/2272-oh-crackers-not-again-game

Pixelprospector was to kind to put me at the blog zolyx.com. There you can find reviews of all 73 games, that were made during the Assemblee Competition (at zolyx search for TAR, a tag for this would be useful!). With that help, I discovered a game, that is so cute and so fun, so I want to share. And here it is: Oh Crackers, Not Again!

You play a girl’s dog (no, really!) with the mission to protect the girl from the evil monsters everywhere. You do so, by running fast and destroy the obstacles, before the girl runs into. Lovely, indirect gameplay and well designed sprites make this a fun game, that’s more than just a little distraction of the day. Here is the TIGthread, with all the details about the game.

February 18, 2010http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/2256-cream-wolf-8-bit-psycho-game

Sometimes only the lineup of the game reads really promising. Cream Wolf is such a case. It is an “Ice-cream-man in disguse cannibalism-game“, where the indie-makers Pixeljam and Messhof teamed up to get the game done. Both gameplay, as well as aestetics look absolutely retro. But this browser-game is also full of modern graphic- and soundeffects, that support the gameplay really well (and to be honest, we didn’t expected anything else from Pixeljam and Messhof).

About gameplay and story: You drive an mad ice-cream man and have to collect cones, play music with your ice-cream van and attract children in the street, in order to sell them your ice cream. The more ice they eat, the fatter they get and more addicted to ice. If it gets full-moon, the fatter kids will follow your ice-cream van. You have to try to get the kids to your homebase… where they then support the ingredients for more ice. Weird story, weird game. Just one click away. (via)

Pixelprospector is still a realtive new site about “promising indie-games in the making“. Ad it is becoming more and more promising, to have a look at pixelprospector itself – just because the games presented there look really promising. Have a look for example at Invert Inc. – a black and white puzzle-platformer, that are so popular this days.

Less is more… I love this formula! The other game, that caught my interest is the opposite of being minimal: “V-Knights is a very fast paced platform shooter that comes across like a really nice SNES Game from the 16-bit era.” The graphics are awesome, while unfortunately the sound-effects are a little bit annoying. V-Knights at least scores with the mood, somewhere between Double Dragon, Turrican and Finwick.

February 16, 2010http://gamedesignreviews.com/scrapbook/more-trauma-information/

Short update on TRAUMA. I know things are getting a bit silent here. That’s mostly because I’m trying not to get swamped in work and get TRAUMA as much done as I can before the IGF. I’m still working on that Intro. I think I will wrap up some of the more complex CGI scenes [...]

February 9, 2010http://gamedesignreviews.com/scrapbook/monster-guard-nearly-finished/

i’ve nearly finished my new game: monster guard.
it’s an online strategical game, some sort of tactical rpg … but without rpg depth and no tactics, either
i’m pretty tired right now and just want to give you the good news quickly.
you can read about the game, see (more) screenshots and view a qucik how-to-play video [...]

February 6, 2010http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/2214-zoo-transport

Zoo Transport is lovely. You play a penguin, that has to do animal-transposts for the zoo. Your truck get equipped with various animal-loads, like parrot, dolphin, zebra or monkey. Don’t loose your load on the way from zoo to zoo! Every animal-package on your truck has different properties. Zebras for example love speed, while parrots begin to fly from time to time. In combination with the road, interesting combinations of levels are possible. Thumbs up for Zoo Transport. Music and style are relaxed sporty. A really entertaining and laid-back casual.

February 5, 2010http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/2204-resonance-global-game-jam-platformer-puzzle

Somewhere in the deepest guts of the Global Game Jam, I discovered the game “Resonance” (Global Game Jam Entry). It has a decent poetry, and also a little bit of innvative gameplay. Resonance is basically a puzzle-platformer, where you have to reach the exit of each single-screen level. In order to do so, you will collect clefs (Notenschlüssel). This will unlock notes (actually sounds). Every time you play thouse notes, special colored platforms appear. A little bit of a very classic gameplay. But… the note you play merge with the harmonics of the background music. In some levels, just triggering the sounds is a bunch of fun – more like playing music, than a game! I could imagine, that some “timing-based levels” cound increase the fun of playing this music-game much, much more, giving the feeling of playing a score. Another plus of Resonance: the graphics are really, really nice!

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Bonoboblogs is an agglomerated blog of people who are into game design or related art. We tend to be clever and open and have fresh views on computing games. We fill the gap between experimental gameplay, game design and theory. More about.